Firesheep FireFox Extension Reveals Passwords

Those who have downloaded the recently released Firesheep Firefox extension may wish to consider reinstalling Firefox from its base component or switching to a different web browser for a while after it was discovered that the Firesheep extension exposes facebook and twitter passwords.

Through the use of cookies, the extension gathers passwords and through some minor manipulation, allows them to be displayed in another Firefox window.

Firesheep keeps information secure only on a secure network. When logging into many sites, the extension would pop up a window showing each user logged into the unsecured network and allow anyone to click on the user’s information and log them in.

Users logging into social networking sites such as Twitter or Facebook using unsecured WiFi networks are essentially writing their login data onto a large sign and waving it through the air.

A variety of solutions to assist in preventing the hijacking of accounts in this manner have been released onto the web.